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Monday, June 26, 2006

Indonesia Treaty could and should go to Parliament

Thanks to crikey.com.au for publishing the following

If, as expected, John Howard and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono today formally agree to a proceed with developing a new security treaty or pact, the Australian Parliament should take a look at it before it is finalised.

For the last ten years, the Joint Senate and House of Reps Committee on Treaties has regularly reviewed treaties signed by the AustralianGovernment. But this is usually after the relevant Minister has alreadypublicly committed to such international agreements. As Devika Hovell pointed out in The Age recently, the Government dominated committee invariably gives any such treaties the thumbs up.

John Howard’s justified criticism of Paul Keating’s secret treaty negotiations with Suharto are well known. Upon winning office the Howard Government made much of its Treaties committee initiative arguing that it would open up foreign policy to a measure of democracy and accountability.

The reality is that the committee has acted more as a rubber stamp. Yet, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties terms of reference do include ‘any question relating a treaty or other international instrument whether or not negotiated to completion’.

So what better opportunity for the Government to show that it is serious about democratic review of its foreign affairs work than to allow the Treaties committee to investigate, with public hearings and submissions, the proposed Indonesian treaty before it is finalised.

And what better opportunity for the Government to prove that it hasn’t nobbled the Senate Committee system than to allow a controversial, but unarguably important reference, to proceed.

 

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I hope you enjoy some of my ideas and analysis. I am unashamedly Green and much of what you will find here relates to Green politics however I write about a range of current state and national political issues that might have wider appeal.